


(i want to) Create

by AmmoKnotKnot7



Series: Stanning Sokka Week 2020 [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Conversations, Gen, Imperialism, One Shot, POV Sokka (Avatar), Post-Canon, Post-War, Protective Sokka (Avatar), Siblings, Smart Sokka (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar)-centric, Sokka Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27364285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmmoKnotKnot7/pseuds/AmmoKnotKnot7
Summary: Day 3 –invention| cultureThe air walkers are non-benders.Non-benders are flying.No magic, all science.This is the best day of Sokka’s life.Like with all things, of course, the Fire Nation had to come and ruin it.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar)
Series: Stanning Sokka Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994821
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60
Collections: Sokka Week 2020





	(i want to) Create

**Author's Note:**

> so this one is a little more adjacent-to-prompt rather than direct inspiration, but it's something i really wanted to explore  
> Enjoy!

Growing up, Katara’s magic water had been the exception. Everyone else in the tribe was just like Sokka. Most of her ‘experiments’ with her powers, which was definitely magic no matter what she said, ended with Sokka drenched in frozen water, so it was easy for it to become a thing they fought about. 

After Mom, they never really picked serious fights with each other anyway. 

But then they left the tribe, and suddenly bending was everywhere. If Suki hadn’t gotten to him first, a lot of his insecurity would probably have channeled itself into making his narrow views worse. As it was, he found himself newly unlearning his own biases while thrust into a world that saw non-benders as weak and needing protection. 

And that simply wouldn’t do, because Aang may be the Avatar and Katara may be the last waterbender of their tribe, but they were his responsibility. He had to be able to protect them. 

* * *

The air walkers are non-benders. 

_Non-benders are flying_. No magic, all science. 

This is the best day of Sokka’s life. And flying had just been the beginning. 

The Northern Air Temple is a turning point. 

Suddenly he’s surrounded by non-benders who are not only competent, but brilliant. And Sokka finds he loves thinking about ways to solve problems. Actually, practically solving them, rather than relying on magic abilities to save him. 

Like with all things, of course, the Fire Nation had to come and ruin it. 

Eventually, the boomerAang gang (it’s an awesome name, shut up) start to turn to him for all plans, and Sokka gets to talk about how it all eats away at him, and he gets a master that admires his creativity most of all, and he works through it a little. 

Airship slice is probably the best idea he ever had. 

* * *

It’s not _fair_! 

Sokka kicks the low table in his room angrily and just ends up with a throbbing foot on top of everything else. 

He worked so hard and did everything right and now the war is _over_ and all he’s ever wanted is for his Dad and all the warriors to be home. 

And now they are, and he has to leave? 

It's not fucking fair. 

“You know you’ll always have a place with the tribe,” Dad had said. “This is your choice, Sokka,” Dad had said. 

But it’s not. Not really. 

Aunt Wu deserves something worse than Vaatu’s ire. 

In his misery, Sokka kicks into Katara’s room. If he’s going to have to suffer, might as well frustrate her about it at least. 

“What are you doing,” he barks out before he’s fully crossed the hide covering her room’s entrance. 

“Working, what are you doing,” she answers automatically, not looking up from her desk. 

“Annoying you. What are you really doing?” 

“Reading a letter from Aang. What are you really doing?” She still hasn’t looked up. 

“Moping. What’s Aang up to?” Sokka thumps onto the furs and lets himself be as much of a dead weight as he feels. 

“He found some lemur-bats near the Northern Air Temple. What are you moping about?” 

“Wait, there are more Momos in the world?” Sokka shoots upright, and breaking their pattern is finally what makes Katara look up. She squints at him suspiciously. 

“Yes,” she says at length. 

“Damn. I don’t know if that’s more exciting or terrifying.” Sokka flops back. 

“Why are you moping, Sokka?” 

She sounds stern in that way she gets sometimes, when she won’t stop pushing until she gets a real answer out of you. Sokka sighs dramatically anyways. 

“I just finished talking to Dad.” 

Katara lights up for a moment. “Oh, about that studying thing? But that’s exciting Sokka, why are you moping? Have you forgotten how you’re supposed to react when exciting stuff happens?” 

Katara’s grin is infuriating and Sokka takes a petty sort of pleasure in his next words. “Because I have to move to the Fire Nation for it.” 

It’s almost comical, like a wax painting kept too close to fire. Katara’s expression wilts and melts and twists into a scowl that is much more in keeping with the general tone of Sokka’s life currently. 

“You want to leave home again so soon? And to go to the Fire Nation?” 

Sokka surges forward angrily. “Of _course_ I don’t want to!” It comes out much louder and harsher than he meant, all his pent-up irritation building since he left the Chief’s hut. 

Katara rises to match his tone. “Well what do you mean then?!” she demands. 

“They’re the ones with the scrolls and the libraries and the tech!” Sokka forcefully thrusts an arm in some vague direction. 

“Because they STOLE IT!” 

“DOES THAT MATTER?” 

“ _What?_ Of COURSE IT MATTERS!” 

“No-- Arghh.” Sokka scrubs his hands over his face, trying to get a control over his volume. “Yes, Katara, I know they stole everything, I know they made it impossible for anyone else to be able to progress, I know they forced themselves onto everyone and took whatever they felt like and burned the rest. I _know_. I was there, remember?” 

The joke doesn’t land, but the tension releases enough that they sit back down, Sokka on the furs and Katara on the chair. He doesn’t even remember when he got up. 

“The thing is, for me, right now, how they got it literally doesn’t matter. If I want to learn about that stuff, and make use of my strengths and hone my skills and all that stuff you guys were saying earlier-” 

“Sokka you kno-” 

He shakes his head to cut her off. “I do. I know I'm important and all that, that’s not the point. The _point_ is that the only way to achieve it is to go learn with the Fire Nation. They're the only ones that have those means, however horribly they got it.” 

Katara looks miserable and a surge of guilt flushes through Sokka’s chest. Suddenly he can’t imagine what he was thinking, spilling his bad mood onto her. 

But it’s Katara, and she never gives in. 

“No. That can’t be the only way. What about Teo’s dad?” 

Sokka smiles thinly. “He’s just crackpot old man tinkering with stuff and seeing what works. A genius crackpot, don’t get me wrong,” Sokka grins, and Katara finally returns it with a small smile of her own, “but if I want to do real learning...” 

Katara’s expressions sours something fierce. “What if, what if, Zuko sent some scrolls or something home?” 

Sokka’s chest clenches. He hates having to be on this side of the conversation, hates having to shut down all her attempts and her hope. But he’s already argued everything internally and externally. So he shakes his head again. “No,” he says, wishing he were saying anything else, “We don’t have the means here for that to help all that much.” 

Even Katara is running out of optimistic possibilities. “Maybe,” she starts, tentative and soft and hesitant and entirely unlike Katara, “Maybe you don’t have to? Do—Do you have to? Do you need this?” 

No, he does not. He knows he does not. There’s no need. He’s happy, he’s overjoyed with the warriors and the tribe and _Dad_. He could be happy like this forever. He looks at Katara and her cautiously hopeful face, thinly veiling her fear of being separated, being left, and he wants nothing more than to assure her and be here and never leave her side. It would be so easy 

But he also knows if he swallows whatever has been clamoring inside him now, if he agrees to stay, to not explore this option, for the sake of his sister, for the sake of the thirteen-year-old inside him that wanted nothing more than to be with his father, for the sake of others, always, always, others before Sokka himself. If he allows himself the safer, direct option, he will never dare think about it again. He will stifle that seed in him that calls to create. He will be the son he needs to be, the Chief his people need him to be. He will provide for everyone and he will be so so happy. 

And he will always wonder, what if. What could I have been? Done? Known? Made? 

So, instead of doing the thing ingrained in him and taking the out Katara is extending to him desperately, he says, slowly, “I think that, maybe, I do.” Hugs his knees to his chest, not wanting to see the expression on her face just yet. “I think I owe it to myself to try.” 

The silence stretches. The seconds tick in Sokka’s head like he cut his skull open and placed the loudest clock in the world in his brain. He will look up now. Now. Now. 

Finally, he can’t bring himself to do it before a soft hand lands on his shoulder and Katara’s shadow falls over him. 

And when he looks up, there isn’t any of the judgment or accusation or even disgust that he was expecting. Instead there’s that warm understanding expression that reminds him of how this all started in the first place. Of how Katara and Dad and Bato noticed what he needed even before he did. 

“I know, Sokka. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made this about me.” 

“No, no, that’s not, that’s fine, I get it. You're fine, Tara.” 

She smiles, a little sadly but still warm, and sits down next to him. 

“It’s just, you know,” 

“Fire Nation,” they say simultaneously. Huff a laugh. Sokka nods. “Yup, I know. Trust me, I hate it too. I hate it _so much_. Why do you think I was moping?” 

“You know, I don’t think you actually told me in the end, so.” 

Katara chuckles lightly, and Sokka smiles back. 

After a few seconds, she says, “Well, good. You should hate it. In fact,” she turns to face him and pokes a finger right in the middle of his chest, “You have to promise me something.” 

Sokka blinks, wide-eyed and taken aback at the sharpening of tone. “What?” 

“You’re not allowed to like a single minute of being there.” 

Sokka’s still frozen, because Katara’s gaze is squinty and heavy, but he risks a sideways grin. “One, that’s not a promise. Two, no real point in going if I'm going to hate it all, especially on principle.” 

Katara squints harder, and it's unsettling how effectively intimidating it is. “You have no problem hating all sorts of stuff on principle. Like Aang’s diet, or Bato’s knots, or-” 

“Okay, okay, I get the idea.” Sokka’s given in and fully grinning now. “What I meant was, if I'm going to be forced to go to a nation I hate and be around jerkbenders and jerk-non-benders, I might as well enjoy as much as I can out of it. That's the point of going at all, right?” 

Katara scrutinizes him for just a moment more, then drops her finger and her pinning gaze. “Fine. As long as we’re clear on the fact that you hate the Fire Nation and always will.” 

Sokka rolls his eyes. “Of course I'll always hate the Fire Nation. I’ll just,” he gives his most winning smile, “also show them exactly what they’re missing.” 

Katara grins back. “You do that, dunderhead.” 

They lapse into a comfortable silence. As Katara returns to Aang’s letter, Sokka makes a different promise to himself. He's going to squeeze all the knowledge he can from the world and make his nation the greatest of them all, so no Southern Water Tribe teen ever has to choose between home and future prospects ever again. 

* * *

“Hold on. Why would the Fire Nation teach me anything in the first place?” 

**Author's Note:**

> thinking about the answer to that question led to whole series of events that changed the course of his life. [read about it here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24771709)  
> lmao advertising. but really though, i think just going over the prologue will expand on this, explain where it's headed, as well as contrast the tone of this one-short with that longform fic. both are true simultaneously
> 
> this is an aspect of colonisation and imperialism that i haven't seen many takes on. what we call 'developing countries' today are not lesser, they're just exploited. and that's why even today we still see moving to west or pursuing higher studies in the west as superior, because it grants you more opportunities. it's not like i want to have to leave my country
> 
> and in the atla-verse this is even more true. i've always felt all these child soldiers should have gotten the opportunity to be children, instead of immediately jumping into politics after the war. sokka, esp, deserves to get to study and explore his passion for invention. unfortunately, the only way to do that is to go to the country that started all this in the first place.  
> and then of course, it becomes political anyway, if you read the longer fic, because he has to sell it to the fire nation in a way that makes it useful for them to share their knowledge as well. 
> 
> another point is that while sokka would make a great chief, i just want for him to be able to prioritise himself. he's been taking on responsibility literally his entire life, i want him to be able to explore himself.  
> katara, on the other hand. it fits in with her character arc, it makes narrative sense, and it complements her personality. Chief Katara rights ba _by_


End file.
